Legal bid dropped over incinerator scheme funding

Protesters gather outside County Hall, Northallerton, protesting against the proposed incinerator in North Yorkshire. Picture by Simon Hulme

Controversial plans for a waste incinerator plant at Allerton Park are in question after council chiefs dropped a legal challenge against the Government’s withdrawal of funding for the scheme.

North Yorkshire County Council and York Council have been seeking a judicial review of last February’s decision by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to axe £65m worth of private finance initiative (PFI) credit support for the Allerton Park project.

Yesterday, however, the councils announced they had withdrawn their review application, which was due to be heard at the end of this month.

They said they had received legal advice that it would not be in the public interest to go ahead as, even if the challenge succeeded, Defra was unlikely to reinstate the PFI funding.

The councils will share the cost of the aborted judicial review process, which will run into tens of thousands of pounds.

Plans for the £250m Allerton Waste Recovery Park near Knaresborough have been the subject of fierce opposition from campaigners, who say the 25-year management contract awarded to private company AmeyCespa is too rigid as new technology could be developed that would supersede the site’s incinerator.

North Yorkshire County Council insisted the scheme was not dead in the water – but also admitted a decision now had to be taken on whether it still offered value for money without the £65m of Government backing.

David Bowe, the corporate director for business and environmental services at the authority, said: “The advice is that the council’s case is strong and we continue to believe that Defra made an unlawful decision, but it is clear from this and other recent decisions that Defra does not wish to continue to support projects of this type anymore.

“Even if we win, we cannot guarantee that we would get the credits back. We worked closely with Defra officials for many years on this project and feel very disappointed by the way they have conducted themselves but we now have to accept that the argument is not worth pursuing. The loss of credits is a blow but it doesn’t mean the project is over.

“We are continuing to work with our contractor, AmeyCespa, to mitigate the loss of [the credits] and complete the last details of the contract. The final decision on whether the project remains affordable and value for money will be made later in 2014 when this work is completed.”

The announcement was welcomed by Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Andrew Jones, who has been a vocal critic of the scheme.

He said: “It is difficult to see a way forward for this proposal retaining the incinerator element which already has in its wake a trail of problems and can only look forward to an uncertain future financially.”

Mr Jones added: “There is still a chance to work with local people and the contractors to implement a cost-effective, environmentally friendly and modern alternative to incineration.

“It is time to get everyone around the table again – councils, local people, MPs and the waste contractor – and agree a way to move on from this proposal.”

It was estimated last year that around £6.5m had already been spent by North Yorkshire and York councils on developing the Allerton Park scheme.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Ripon Gazette provides news, events and sport features from the Ripon area. For the best up to date information relating to Ripon and the surrounding areas visit us at Ripon Gazette regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Ripon Gazette requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.